299 Henry Street
299 Henry Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn
BBL 3002630007 · BIN 3002470
- Year built
- 1900
- Type
- Cooperative
- Units
- 10
- Floors
- 5
- Landmark
- Designated
- Subletting
- Permitted. Sale, assignment and sublet each require consent by board resolution or, if refused, by shareholders owning at least 65 percent of outstanding shares (proprietary lease summary, 1986 plan). The managing agent may charge a fee for processing a sublet or assignment. Sublet fee income appears as a line in the corporation's financial statements, confirming the practice is live. No term cap or surcharge level documented
- Pets
- House rules require express written permission of the corporation, revocable at will; dogs carried or leashed in public portions - the standard prewar form
Compiled by The Roebling Research Desk from the building’s offering plan, amendments, and related building documents (primary source dated 1986 (plan documents); alteration agreement and financials 2009-2011). Reported and subject to confirmation. Board policies can change by amendment — confirm at the offer stage.
Most Brooklyn Heights buildings are sold on their period. This one has to be sold on its plan and its position, because the Landmarks Preservation Commission took its period away. In the district file the style is recorded as "Modern" — not a compliment but a description of what was done: original details and stoop removed, a modern brick façade added. Its neighbors keep their identities and their builders' names. No. 301 next door is a Federal house of 1833 built by Richard White; Nos. 297 and 295 are Anglo-Italianate brownstones of 1847 by E. T. H. Gibson and Henry Everit. No. 299 is the gap in the row: no date, no builder, no style but the one the twentieth century gave it.
That is an honest starting point and also the building's commercial logic. A refronted house on a landmarked block trades below its period neighbors while sharing their street, their light and their zoning — and its apartments, the product of a full interior reworking rather than a careful preservation, tend to be more usable than the parlor-floor subdivisions in unaltered houses nearby. Five stories, ten apartments, roughly 6,900 gross square feet on a 25-by-92.5-foot lot: compact, efficient Brooklyn Heights stock.
The conversion story explains the corporation's balance sheet, which is why buyers should know it. Richard Goidel, a Brooklyn investor who had completed the cooperative conversion of 15 Cranberry Street in July 1984, filed a non-eviction plan here on February 1, 1986, offering 535 shares over ten apartments at $1,950 per share to tenants in occupancy and $2,950 to outside purchasers, against $150,000 of assumed mortgage debt, with $31,300 set aside as a capital reserve and $8,700 as a general reserve. Seven apartments were rent-stabilized and three rent-controlled.
Then the market answered. The First Amendment of June 19, 1986 cut the non-tenant price to $2,507.50 per share. The Second Amendment of October 16 cut it to $2,300. The Third Amendment of October 29 — thirteen days later — cut it to $1,825, below what the building's own tenants had been offered nine months earlier. In eight months the sponsor discounted outside shares by roughly 38 percent. Nothing in the file suggests distress in the building; it suggests a ten-unit walk-up arriving late in a crowded conversion cycle with no elevator, no doorman and no lobby to sell. The consequence today is a corporation capitalized modestly at the start, carrying a small underlying mortgage and thin reserves, funding capital work through maintenance and periodic assessments rather than an inherited cushion.
Architecture and unit composition
Five floors above a cellar on a 25-foot lot, the building occupying roughly 25 by 54 feet of a 92.5-foot-deep parcel — which means a real rear yard behind, and rear-facing apartments that look at gardens rather than a wall.
Schedule A is the clearest description of the stock that exists. Ten apartments: one three-bedroom with a garden (60 shares, the largest allocation), one one-bedroom with a terrace (41 shares, the smallest), and eight one-bedroom apartments at 54 to 56 shares each — a nearly uniform building with an exception at either end. Within the one-bedroom core, floor and renovation state are effectively the only variables, which makes in-building comparables unusually predictive; the two outliers comp against nothing else here.
The envelope is brick over a nineteenth-century structure, and its most consequential feature is the plumbing. Under the corporation's alteration agreement, a shareholder who removes walls and exposes pipes must replace all branch lines back to the risers, with the cooperative replacing any riser found in poor condition. That is a candid acknowledgement of an ageing system and a well-drafted response — it turns individual renovations into building-wide capital improvement — but it adds real cost to any gut renovation. Budget for it. Exterior work runs through Landmarks; on a house that already carries a modern brick front, the Commission's interest will focus on windows and on any proposal to restore rather than alter further.
Building operations
299 Henry Apartment Corp. has run the building since the 1986 closing, with Adventure Properties, Inc. as managing agent per the corporation's own alteration agreement. The Roebling Research Library holds the plan, the first three amendments, the lease, by-laws, house rules, alteration agreement and financials from the late 1990s forward.
The financial shape is consistent across the years reviewed and is the shape of a ten-unit walk-up: real estate taxes run near half of total operating cost, management fees and superintendent services are contracted at modest fixed amounts, and utilities, water and sewer, insurance and professional fees fill the remainder. Income is maintenance plus small laundry receipts, occasional sublet fees, and periodic special assessments — one of which appears at $12,500 in a recent statement, roughly a sixth of that year's maintenance line. The underlying mortgage has amortized steadily to a modest balance. Statements are prepared on a review rather than audit basis, and the corporation has at times carried a "due to shareholders" balance indicating shareholder advances; ask about both, and request the assessment history and reserve balance alongside the current budget. The recurring capital items are the façade and FISP cycle, the roof, the boiler, and the plumbing risers the alteration agreement already flags.
Recent sales
The retrade record
Lines that have traded more than once in the public record — the building’s appreciation arc, apartment by apartment.
Recent transfers at this building, sourced from NYC Department of Finance records. Apartment-level detail (line, condition, asking-price context) verified upon consultation request.
| Date | Unit | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Jun 26, 2025 | 1B/2B | $1,785,000 |
| Jun 4, 2024 | D1 | $685,000 |
| Jun 9, 2020 | C2 | $679,000 |
| Sep 1, 2017 | B1/B2 | $1,550,000 |
| Sep 29, 2016 | 2A | $631,000 |
| Jan 28, 2016 | 1A | $742,000 |
Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-00263-0007) and verified listing data. Apartment-level facts (line, condition, asking-price context) curated and cross-verified by The Roebling Team research desk. Not all transactions cross-verify with ACRIS records — sponsor and LLC purchases sometimes record at stipulated values rather than market price.
What to know if you’re buying
The façade is not original, and that is priced in. The LPC's own record says the details and stoop were removed and a modern brick front added. Buy the plan, the light and the block; do not pay a period premium the building does not carry.
Read the alteration agreement before planning a renovation. Exposing plumbing triggers replacement of branch lines back to the risers. Good policy, real money.
Ask for the assessment history. A ten-unit corporation with a modest reserve funds capital work through assessments; the decade-long pattern tells you more than any single budget.
Confirm the share allocation. The plan's cover page and Schedule A disagree on the total. Verify the apartment's shares against the stock ledger.
What to know if you’re selling
Sell the block and the plan. Henry Street between State and Joralemon, a Federal house next door and Anglo-Italianate brownstones two doors down, a rear yard, and an efficient apartment layout.
Use the building's own comparables. Eight nearly identical one-bedrooms means the last in-building sale is a defensible anchor. Few small Heights co-ops can say that.
Document the capital work. A clear record of façade, roof, boiler and riser work answers the question buyers are actually asking about reserves.
Flag the professional-use permission. The lease allows professional and semi-professional use consistent with zoning — a differentiator most competing listings cannot claim.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering 299 Henry Street, also evaluate:
- 301 Henry Street — the 1833 Federal house next door at the State Street corner, itself stripped of details with a fourth story added; the closest possible comparable
- 15 Cranberry Street — the same sponsor's earlier 1984 conversion, the same playbook at the other end of the district
- 282 Henry Street — small Henry Street cooperative peer across the street
- 245 Henry Street — postwar apartment-house co-op north of Joralemon, for services against row-house scale
- 153 Henry Street — mid-size prewar Henry Street co-op
- 161 Henry Street — prewar Henry Street co-op peer
- 277 Hicks Street — small co-op one block west in the same southern Heights pocket
- 151 Joralemon Street — 1913 apartment house around the corner
- 199 State Street (The Lookout Hill Condominium) — the condominium alternative on State Street, for buyers who want a deed rather than shares
The full playbook — what goes in the package, how boards read your financials, the interview, and the timeline — plus sample cover, reference, and personal letters you can adapt.
Considering a move at 299 Henry Street?
Request a private building brief with the relevant comparable sales, current and off-market availability, and an apartment-specific view of value.
Own an apartment here? See what it would sell for.
A Private Pricing Opinion — what your apartment at 299 Henry Street would likely sell for today, what it costs to sell, and what you’d walk away with — reviewed personally against condition, exposures, renovation quality, and the competition actually on the market.